Churches of Göreme

People of Göreme, at the heart of the Cappadocia region, realized that these soft rocks could be easily carved out to form houses, churches, and monasteries.

In the 4th century, small anchorite communities began to form in the region, acting on the instruction of Saint Basil of Caesarea.

The only surviving example of its architectural origins is the Church of Mar Yakub in the Tur Abdin region located around present day Mardin.

The Old Church is decorated with pale hues of red and green painted in strips to represent scenes from the New Testament and depictions of some saints.

Panels of rich indigo painted with pigments from Badakshan lapis lazuli stone dominate the New Church : scenes from the New Testament, miracles of Christ, the first deacons, episodes from the life of St.

The most elaborate decorative program of the Old Church at Tokali Kilise is the Christological cycle located in the barrel vault of the one-aisled basilica.

On each side of the vault there are three registers of narrative containing 32 scenes depicting the traditional tripartite division of the life of Christ; the Infancy, the Miracles, and the Passion.

The images do not necessarily render reality; the figures do not display convincing volume and the drapery is unnaturalistic being more concerned with a geometric style of representation.

These stylistic traits (proportions, flatness and geometric abstraction) can also be compared to frescos in other parts of the empire like Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.

However an entirely regional trait is also evident in the "tendency to name otherwise anonymous characters through the association with an object or action in the text (Bible)."

An example is the figure filling an urn with water in the Miracle at Cana scene who is named Antlioin which is derived from the Greek word "to draw out".

Considering the medallions containing portraits of the Old Testament prophets is located at the highest point of the vault, the spine, it is representing the beginning or the first age of revelation and they are the figures who foretell the coming of Christ and his deeds on earth.

These prophecies are then depicted throughout the rest of the narrative in the Infancy, Miracles and Passion registers that fill the remainder of the vault – the second age of revelation.

There are two main fresco cycles and a large amount of saints, clergymen and martyrs distributed throughout the rest of the wall space.

Basil was the principal religious figure of the Cappadocian region and it is therefore suspected that the New Church was dedicated to him[11] There are only two known fresco cycles of the life of St.

[12] Located in the transept on the lower walls of the north bay multiple scenes from this local Cappadocian saint were painted in the New Church.

Located on the nave cornice a fragment of sentence was written which translates to: 'Your (most holy church) was completely decorated by Constantine out of love for the monastery (of the heavenly angles).

A second inscription located in the north apse is translated as: 'The bema was decorated by … Nikephoros, at the expense of Leon, son of Constantine.

However, with much research and evidence the leading scholar on Tokali Kilise, Ann Wharton Epstein, argues that Nikephoros was responsible for the entire decoration of the New Church.

The name of the church is believed to refer to a reddish orb in the left hand of the Archangel Michael in the dome of the main apse, or possibly to an apple tree that grew in the vicinity.

The north wall of the church contains a fresco of St. George and St Theodore on horse-back struggling against the dragon and snake.

The saint lived the life of a hermit in the Egyptian desert near Thebes, Egypt and is usually depicted with a long gray beard and wearing only a fig leaf.

It was decorated with scenes from the New Testament:  Christ Pantocrator, Nativity, Adoration of the Magi, First Bath, Last Supper, Betrayal of Judas, Crucifixion, Anastasis.

After 14 years of scraping pigeon droppings off the walls, these newly restored frescos, depicting scenes from the New Testament, are the best preserved in all of Cappadocia and a fine example of 11th-century Byzantine art.

The church's frescos, which date to the 11th century, contain the four Evangelists, the Nativity and the Crucifixion, the Baptism, the Adoration of the Magi, and other New Testament themes.